A Senate panel today approved an abortion regulation bill that also would alter Louisiana's so-called conscience protection law to allow medical professionals the absolute right to deny certain care based on their personal beliefs.

File photoRep. Frank Hoffman

House Bill 636 by Rep. Frank Hoffman, R-West Monroe, is named the "Forced Abortion Prevention Sign Act," because, among other provisions, it requires clinics that offer abortion services to post new signs in public view. Building on the 1995 Woman's Right to Know law, the sign would state that a woman cannot legally be forced into terminating a pregnancy, while also noting that fathers are liable for child support and that adoptive parents might pay for prenatal care and birthing expenses.

The bill's name notwithstanding, it was the conscience clause that sparked the most intense debate in the Senate Health and Welfare Committee.

Current law, adopted in 2009, states that, "Any person has the right not to participate in, and no person shall be required to participate in any health care service that violates his conscience to the extent that patient access to health care is not compromised." The Hoffman bill, which has the backing of Gov. Bobby Jindal and abortion-rights opponents, would end that sentence at the word "conscience," thus eliminating the qualifier that a medical professional's decision cannot threaten patients' right to care.

The health-care services covered by the provision are limited to "abortion, dispensation of abortifacient drugs, human embryonic stem cell research, including destruction of any living human embryo, human embryo cloning, euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide." State law does not define abortifacient for the purposes of the conscience protection law.

Dorinda Bordlee, an attorney representing the Bioethics Defense Fund, told senators that the change is needed to "close a loophole" in the current law. Bordlee was a principal author of the existing law and is Hoffman's primary adviser on the proposed bill.

Julie Mickelberry of Planned Parenthood, a non-governmental family planning agency who services include pregnancy termination, warned that the bill could go well beyond abortion and cloning to deny women access to birth control, both conventional prescriptions and emergency contraception commonly called "the morning-after pill."

Mickelberry noted that more gynecologists might refuse to prescribe contraception, particularly intrauterine devices that are designed to prevent fertilization or block implantation. Pharmacists and pharmacy technicians also could refuse to fill legal prescriptions, she said. Those refusals would be particularly harmful, Mickelberry said, to women in rural areas with limited health care options or for women, regardless of where they live, whose insurance allows limited office visits.

Sen. David Heitmeier, D-Algiers, reminded Bordlee and Hoffman that that the clause House Bill 636 would eliminate was a compromise that allowed the 2009 passage of the law. Heitmeier proposed stripping the entire protection law, but he could muster only a second vote from Sen. Joe McPherson, D-Woodworth. Sens. Sherry Smith Cheek, R-Shreveport; Fred Mills, R-St. Martinville; and Ben Nevers, D-Bogalusa, voted to leave the bill as it is.

Heitmeier asked Dr. Vincent Culotta, an obstetrician-gynecologist representing the Louisiana State Medical Society, to consult with his organization on Hoffman's proposed changes. The senator asked that the society take a position before the full Senate votes on the measure.

Besides the signs and the conscience protection provision, Hoffman's bill also would require the Department of Health and Hospitals to develop a new web site building on the printed information that abortion clinics have had to distribute since 1995. Current law requires that the state provide an interpreter to ensure that a woman understands the materials that she reviews before signing an "informed consent" statement required for an abortion. Hoffman's bill would shift that responsibility to the provider.

The information given a pregnant female also would include references to entities that provide free ultrasounds and alternatives to termination, with the caveat that any entities listed not provide abortion services or refer patients to clinics that do. Heitmeier questioned that exception, in light of Bordlee and Hoffman framing the bill as a way to ensure that women are "fully informed."

The committee adopted amendments, sought by the Medical Society, clarifying that signage and notification requirements -- and the criminal penalties for violation -- apply only to the state's six licensed abortion clinics, but not to hospitals or other providers that perform only medically necessary pregnancy terminations.